


6 McShep Fusions I'm Not Writing

by seikaitsukimizu



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga), Fantastic Four (Movies), Gilmore Girls, Monk (TV), Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crack, Humor, M/M, Not Beta Read, Slash, fusion au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-02
Updated: 2008-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26058742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seikaitsukimizu/pseuds/seikaitsukimizu
Summary: Stargate: Atlantis Fusions AUs.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Kudos: 1





	1. Monk

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal's 2008 [14 Day Valentines.](https://14valentines.livejournal.com/profile)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It was so hard to move on, without his husband."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Day 2 - Hunger](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/100905.html)

It was sunny, one of the later days in Colorado’s spring where it wasn’t too warm, and the cold nip had left the breeze. He was lying back on a soft wool blanket, the green one he’d inherited from his mother, with his hands behind his head and his t-shirt riding up enough to expose an inch of skin. Across the walkway, a couple of children were playing in a jungle gym, and the sounds brought a smile to his face as he rested his eyes.

“I hate picnics,” a gruff voice said beside him, a warm leg pressed against his denim covered thigh. It was warm enough he could’ve worn shorts, but there had been an accident with the vacuum cleaner and all he could wear without embarrassing stains were his jeans. “You know I took in way too much radiation today, plus there’s a dozen bees plotting my demise nearby, I can feel it.” A finger poked John in the ribs. “And there’s kids,” the last word was spoken like an epithet.

“I like kids,” John replied laconically, tilting his head and opening an eye to take in the view of his unofficial husband.

The broad-shouldered man let out a huff of air. “No. No, no, and, didn’t I say? No. We’ve had this discussion before. I work long hours and can’t stand them. We’re not getting one.” He narrowed his bright blue eyes at John. “And don’t you dare try to pout your way into getting one, either.”

“Rodney,” John drew out the name to almost three syllables, turning his head back towards the sky. “I don’t want kids.” Yet, he added silently. He was great with kids, and he did want his own, but like Rodney he didn’t have the time or energy to raise one. At least, not until he got tenure at the college.

There was a snort of derision. “Sure you don’t.” There were a few blessed moments of silence, a rare treat for John, since Rodney was an avid talker, even in bed. “ This is stupid, you know. We could be somewhere else, somewhere romantic, or educational, or maybe, you know, useful to your situation.”

John reached out and grasped one of Rodney’s shoulders, squeezing it. “I want this.” Another moment of silence, and then there was a warm body lying next to him, one of Rodney’s arms across his chest both possessive and gentle. It was exactly the way it should be, him and Rodney, spending time together. They got to do that so little ever since they moved to Colorado and Rodney got that new job at Cheyenne Mountain involving deep space telemetry.

“This is stupid,” Rodney said again. “Also, why they hell aren’t you teaching? Your little hiatus will ruin your rep as a tenured professor. You need to get back.”

“I can’t.” There was a bitterness to John’s tone. He didn’t want to talk about it. “Can we just-”

“No.” And then Rodney was leaning over him, a crooked scowl on his face. “You won’t teach, but you solve crimes in your spare time.”

“It pays the bills.” And it was fun, plus it took his mind off the school, off of everything. It wasn’t easy in his condition, but it helped him cope.

“It put you here,” Rodney said, eyes flashing darkly. “How long have you got?”

John shrugged one shoulder as he reached up to pull Rodney down. “I don’t know.’

Rodney didn’t budge. “Don’t play the idiot with me. Yes, you’re not a genius like me, but you’re smart; too smart to not know. Now how long?”

John let out a long breath through his nose, his hand stroking Rodney’s arm. “I dunno. Feels like your standard pine box so…maybe twenty minutes before all the oxygen is used up.” He actually knew the exact dimensions in his head because he’d seen the empty casket in the back of Kavanagh’s truck earlier.

“So stop talking and start conserving your breath, moron. You’ve got to live long enough for them to find you.”

John shook his head, once more resting his hand on Rodney’s back. “I don’t want to go.” He didn’t have to explain the why. He’d whispered ‘I miss you’ into Rodney’s pillow--preserved perfectly in a plastic slipcover--plenty of times for his partner to know. “Can’t we just enjoy the afternoon?” John looked past Rodney, to the kids. One of them, a blond girl with a propensity to jump off swings while they were high in the air, flew from her seat and landed in the arms of her father. “Why’d you have to go? We’d have made great parents.”

“You would’ve been a great parent. I would’ve been the breadwinner. And don’t try changing the subject, John Sheppard.” Rodney slapped him lightly on his chest. “Focus. You have to escape.”

“I’m buried alive, Rodney.” The idea of escaping was absurd.

“You have to. Because if you die…” Pain flashed briefly across Rodney’s face, a crumpled, sad look that almost never appeared, and always made John feel guilty.

Except this time. “I’ll be with you.” He stroked the back of his hand against Rodney’s cheek. “I’d be happy again.” He hadn’t been truly happy in years.

Rodney grasped his hand tightly. “As much as I enjoy being the object of your obsession, it’s not healthy.” He squeezed John’s fingers. “You have to let go.”

“I can’t.” He’d tried, he’d tried so hard. But someone had blown Rodney up in John’s car. It was a bomb that had been intended for him, and the guilt was something he couldn’t release.

“John-”

“Please, Rodney,” he squeezed against Rodney’s grip, “just let this happen.”

“No,” he said in that stubborn, ‘you’re an idiot’ tone that brokered no argument. “You need to live, and you need to get back to teaching, back to your life.”

“Not until I find them.” The ones who’d killed Rodney, tried to kill him. He’d searched long and hard, even going through the few files Rodney had kept at home with the monogrammed SGC imprint. He’d found a few leads, but the closer he came to each clue the more questions arose.

“This is the third time this year you’ve been in a near-death situation. I know your sense of self-preservation sucks, but this is ridiculous. Now you’re going to stop this detective nonsense, go back to your job, and find someone else.” Rodney frowned for a moment. “What about Carson? He’s kind of nice.”

“He’s not,” John fought for breath, the air getting thin, “sarcastic enough.”

“John? You have to stop talking. Okay? Save your breath.”

“I want,” another hard breath, his lungs burned at not receiving enough oxygen this time, “to see you again.”

“You have plenty of pictures, and don’t think I haven’t seen you sniff my preserved articles of clothing like some deranged stalker.” Rodney looked a little fuzzy now, but John felt himself smirk at the words. “Now shut up.”

“I-”

“No. Shut. Up.” John opened his mouth again, but before he could say anything Rodney was kissing him, the long, forceful kiss he used whenever he was losing an argument with John and wanted to try and make him forget. It never worked, but this time, this time John was more than eager to play along, and reached up to run his fingers through Rodney’s short hair, reveling in the feeling.

Then the burning in his lungs grew sharp as a gust of fresh air blew across him. “Sheppard! We need the medic!” It was Teyla’s voice, the general assistant and semi-nurse he had hired. “John? John, can you hear me?”

“Is he,” there was a confused tone from Captain Lorne, the local police chief, “smiling?”

John simply kept his eyes closed, remaining in his own mind for a few moments longer. It had been so real, but then, psychotic breaks, even tiny ones, often led to hallucinations. It wasn’t until Teyla stuck her fingers against his neck that he finally took a deep breath through his mouth and looked up into the blue sky, ignoring the concerned faces hovering over him.

One day, he’d do as Rodney asked and go back to the university. But only after he’d discovered who had destroyed his life, first. Kavanagh had been a dead end, but he had learned one thing from the dirty scientist. One clue that could potentially be the key.

Starting tomorrow, he and Teyla were going to begin investigating The Trust.


	2. Star Trek: Voyager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Lieutenant John Sheppard wasn't going to let Rodney push him away this time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Day 6 - Motherhood](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/103002.html)

John tugged on his uniform and straightened from his slouch against the doorframe as McKay walked towards him. It’d been almost a day since the alien experiments, and the vivid memories of Rodney shoving him against the Jeffery’s Tube wall in engineering and practically tearing his tunic off were haunting him. Well, not haunting, but he still felt the impulse to fight back, to match Rodney push for shove and feel those teeth on his neck and god, who knew drawing blood could be so hot?

The Klingons, obviously. And he should’ve known something was wrong when Rodney ‘Never Use my Klingon Name Ever!’ McKay was using their tactics.

The half-Klingon in question stood awkwardly in front of John. “Lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant.” John met Rodney’s eyes, his palms sweating, but he wasn’t going to run from this. He wasn’t. There’d been something between them for years now. And he wasn’t going to let some stupid, perverted aliens ruin it. “Can I come in?”

Rodney’s eyes narrowed, but he punched the code into the keypad to unlock his door and made no move to keep John out. “Something you forgot to cover in the debriefing, Sheppard?” He dropped the PADDs on a glass desk and turned, arms crossed, shoulders hunched, chin thrust out. The Klingon scowl could still scare some in Engineering, but John had long since been able to ignore the crooked look. “Captain Weir made it very clear that we obviously weren’t in our right minds-”

“Weren’t we?” John risked stepping forward. “The aliens didn’t change anything or force us. Just…amplified what was already there. We wouldn‘t have done all that…stuff,” he could feel his ears flush at the memories, “if we hadn’t, deep down, wanted to.”

“So now you’re a pilot, a medic, and a counselor? Where was this insight, oh, I don’t know, ten years ago?”

And that, that stung. His short stint with the Maquis and being captured and almost getting all of Teyla’s crew caught and John felt stomach clench that Rodney would throw that in his face. He thought they were beyond this, were friends. “Fine,” he said coldly, “maybe-”

“John,” Rodney sighed, no longer tense or defensive. His shoulders were slouching and he reached out to grab John’s arm. Even his ridges seemed to droop. “I didn’t mean-”

“You do this every time.” The anger left him. He just wanted…he wanted Rodney. “Someone gets close to you, and you just attack them.”

The hunched shoulders were back, but he didn’t look like he was going to flee, or fake an emergency call from Lieutenant Zelenka, either. “I didn’t exactly grow up with the best role models.”

“And I did,” he snapped back. “So don’t make excuses and tell me,” he wrapped his hand around McKay’s retreating wrist tightly, “tell me why we can’t have this.” Silence answered him, but John was patient, could be patient. Rodney could easily break out of his grip, his biology stronger than his, but he wasn’t. “McKay…”

“You’ll leave me,” he blurted, his dark skin turning darker as a flush spread across his face. “I’ll yell or be difficult or forget something and you’ll just leave. Just like everyone else.”

John tugged the reluctant half-Klingon closer. “You’ve yelled and been difficult--hell, that’s all you’ve ever been.” He tried to bite back his grin at McKay’s scowl. “I’m still here. I like those things about you.”

“You say that now-”

“Since we’ve been stuck in the Delta Quadrant I’ve been saying that.” John sidled closer, so his body was flush against Rodney’s. “And in case you’ve forgotten that time you got Pon Farr, or that time in the shuttle, or yesterday when you bent me over that storage container in cargo bay-”

“That was not my fault! We have established that the aliens-”

“Didn’t mess up what was already there. Just, maybe, hurried it along. A little.” He watched Rodney analyze that, gave the guy a moment to run the numbers and ideas in his head. And then John leaned forward to kiss Rodney, because he figured McKay’s stubbornness couldn’t fight yet another argument for this. It took a few heartbeats before Rodney got with the program.

“Fine,” Rodney mumbled around John’s mouth, “but if you hurt me I’ll break every bone in your body.”

“Love you too, M’rdeth.”

Rodney growled a little at that. “Don‘t push it, Flyboy. They’ll never find the body.” And then he shoved John against the wall.

And the next day John happily put up with the “Huh, you’re glowing like a warp core” jokes from Ensign Cadman. He’d earned it. 


	3. Sailor Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My models predict they’ll strike sometime in the next forty-two hours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Day 8 - Domestic Violence](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/104091.html)

Rodney was straightening his teal bow-tie when the sound of the studio door slamming echoed through the room. Scowling at his reflection, he turned around to scowl at his partner. As he expected, the man’s tussled hair was in even greater disarray than usual, dark locks sticking up every which direction. His shirt was half unbuttoned, crooked, and rumpled, and his face was plastered with an enormous grin. Crossing his arms, he let out a huff of air. “I swear I’m going to send that overpriced gas guzzler to the scrap heap.”

“I’m not having an affair with the car,” his words were energetic, and he sounded a bit high.

Rodney waved at him. “Have you looked in the mirror?! You look like something a two-dollar whore leaves when she’s done!”

“Know a lot about two-dollar whores, Rodney?” The grin morphed into more of a smirk, and he started to unbutton his shirt as Rodney squawked and flailed. “Relax, I’ve got plenty of time.”

“The concert’s in an hour! And you look like you’ve just been well-fucked!”

Tossing the shirt aside, he grabbed Rodney’s arms and nuzzled his cheek, tongue flicking out to tease the curve of his ear. “I don’t think you can say that, considering you have seen me that way.”

Rodney shivered. “John…” His voice was needy and protesting, but his hands wrapped around John’s bare arms and pulled him closer.

John let himself be held, then, with a quick kiss, he slipped out of Rodney’s embrace and headed for the closet. He unbuttoned the top of his jeans. He was only a waiter at tonight’s function, but it was Rodney’s concert, and he’d never let anything ruin it; including himself. Music was one of Rodney’s true passions, and in their world of deceit and secrecy, any truth was worth holding on to.

Turning back to the window, Rodney sighed, but remained silent as he gazed at the setting sun. “They’ve been quiet,” he finally said, when he heard the rustle of clothes being put on.

“Yeah, I was about to ask-”

“My models predict they’ll strike sometime in the next forty-two hours.” Another sigh. “Probably during my performance.”

“That does seem to be our luck.” John tucked his shirt into the tux pants and grimaced. The Wraith had been an easy threat compared to the Replicators--or Asurans, as they liked to call themselves. They had come from outside the Milky Way, from another galaxy. He and Rodney should have protected the Sol system, prevented the invasion from ever happening, but they had been asleep at the time.

Which was why they were now undercover, acting as college students within the Asuran school system in the hopes of discovering--and destroying--the evil. “Maybe we’ll be lucky and the others can take care of it tonight.”

Rodney snorted, sneering into the window. “Yes, because Cameron and those morons can handle extraterrestrial incursions so well. Did you forget that Neo-Atlantis was almost destroyed because of their incompetence?! Christ, at least Carson was there to save them from their screw-ups.”

“You don’t have to be so hard on them.” Deep down, John felt similar feelings of resentment. He and Rodney and Carson had been banished to the outer reaches of the kingdom, to protect it from outsiders. They could never leave their posts, and as a result, were isolated from the very people they were protecting. Including their Prince. Shrugging on a black jacket, he snagged a tie and shoved it in his pocket, then went over to the window behind Rodney and spooned against him.

Rodney leaned back, the tense shoulders relaxing just by John’s presence. “The Prince is a clumsy, naïve simpleton who is studying,” a shudder, “archeology. At least Carter has some brains, or the whole lot would’ve been killed by the Goa’uld or Wraith by now.”

John simply nodded. He didn’t think the new guardians were completely horrible, but they certainly weren’t the experienced veterans he and Rodney were. Sure, they all had their memories from the past life thanks to Daniel and the ZedPM crystal, but they didn’t have the training, the skill, that the outer guardians had. “Are they going to be there tonight?”

“O’Neill’s going to be there, so probably.”

“Joy.” John didn’t like O’Neill that much, but at least he didn’t try to chat them up or invite them to their clique. He understood the division between the inner and outer guardians. “Come on,” he squeezed Rodney’s arms, “let’s go. I need to find out where I’ll be working, and you need to make the piano tuner cry.”

“I only made her cry once, and that was because it was still flat. The tone-deaf wench.” Rodney turned around and eyed John over. “Tie,” he snapped his fingers along with the command. John leaned back and took the cloth out of his pocket. “And if you think I’m letting you take us there,” he started, looping the accessory around John’s neck.

“I was thinking we could take the helicopter,” John’s eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Ha ha, very amusing. As if I’m letting you near that contraption after you nearly flew us into that office building.” With a swift tug, he straightened the tie and examined John up and down once more. “Presentable.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Yes, yes. Come on!” Rodney strode towards the door. “We don’t have all night!”

John grinned and followed, absently reaching up to feel the inside breast pocket of his jacket, and the transformation stick that rested within. They were going out tonight as Rodney McKay and John Sheppard. With luck, the Asurans would put off their insidious designs for another night.

And maybe Sailors Neptune and Uranus could finally take the night off.


	4. Gilmore Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Though most of the diner lights were off, Rodney could just make out John doing…something at the counter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Day 10 - Peace Movement](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/104974.html)

Though most of the diner lights were off, Rodney could just make out John doing…something at the counter. Probably that stupid ketchup bottle thing, or maybe counting how many packets of sugar Aiden had stolen. He actually didn’t care. What he needed was a friendly face, but with Madison off trying to patch things up with Jinto and Laura off marrying that…new boyfriend--a boyfriend that had gotten her pregnant just when it was starting to look like they’d be a family and--no, what Rodney needed was John.

Unfortunately, ever since Keras and the car accident and The Fight, things hadn’t been the same. But after his half-evening with Elizabeth and Steven he really, really needed things to be the same. He stared into the diner, wondering if Radek and Miko were done fighting and he could impose on them, but decided to just bite the bullet. Radek had never seen him at his worst, and John had, and he really didn’t want to throw any more strain on the new married couple. Yet.

Steeling himself, he opened the door, wincing at the bell. Okay, so maybe he had wanted to slip in quietly, but John and his stupid backward baseball cap zeroed in on him immediately. Rodney pulled himself in and shut the door. “Hi,” he offered lamely.

“We’re closed.” John was going through the day’s receipts, Rodney saw. “Come back tomorrow.” His hands were moving, but he knew John, and he knew the man’s attention wouldn’t be off him until he left.

Except Rodney really, really didn’t want to go. “I know. I was just…I had a really crappy evening.”

“Sorry to hear that.” John didn’t even slow down in his paper handling.

“And I could really use a cup of coffee.” He made his way towards the far end of the counter. “Because nothing helps a crappy evening like really, really good coffee. And I was hoping-”

“Look,” John turned his full attention to Rodney again, “I’m sorry, but you know that when I close-”

“But I don’t!” John blinked at him, and Rodney had to blink twice to wonder what the hell he was thinking. “I’m…new. The new doctor. Just hired. Ingram. And I saw this nice diner and thought office coffee was crap so I’m hoping you can hook me up and-”

John sighed. “Rodney-”

“Ingram,” Rodney insisted, because damn it, if he couldn’t have normalcy, maybe his doctoral counterpart could. “Look, I’ll just have a quick, quiet cup of coffee and then leave and you won’t have to see me again.”

“Quiet, right.” He made no move to serve Rodney coffee, but he didn’t make any move to kick him out, either.

Rodney stood and moved around the counter to get the coffee himself. “I can be quiet. I’m very quiet. No one at work even notices I’m there. And see? I’m pouring the coffee myself, so you don’t have to worry about it. And now I’ll sit down and drink it quietly,” he said, sitting back on the stool at the far end of the counter, staring into the brown liquid.

He heard John sigh again, and then more paper shuffling, and Rodney took a sip of the weak, weak coffee, but still better than most places. At least John knew how to brew it so Rodney could tolerate the taste. “It’s really good coffee,” and wow, not even Rodney knew he could be so asinine.

“Thanks,” was the wary reply.

“I mean, really good.” He just couldn’t shut up, could he. “Just the thing after a really crappy day. Crappy month.” Rodney felt his mouth turn down of its own accord. “Crappy life, really.”

“It can’t be that bad.” And that sounds a bit more like the John he knows, not the stoic, closed-off John that’s been around since The Fight.

“It’s horrible. I have a daughter when I’m sixteen and my girlfriend who has it ran off to do…something, and my girl’s not bad, but right now we’re having this huge fight and it’s horrible. And my ex-girlfriend just left me because her new boyfriend got her pregnant. Pregnant! I got her pregnant first! She should be with me because Madison has been wanting this and Laura drives me nuts and it’s never right but god, it was time! We were in sync! And then she has to go and pee on a stick because she thinks she’s getting the flu!”

“That…pretty much sucks.” John’s put down his receipts and has grabbed a donut with a napkin.

“Also, my parents think I’m a total loser who can’t keep a woman or a man, just because I left Lorne at the altar and god, Lorne. He was nice and friendly and, okay, an English professor but I could overlook that and I left him. Left him! I’m never going to find anyone as nice as that again!”

“Sure you will. It’ll just take some time.” John awkwardly slides the pastry in front of Rodney. “Here.”

“I’m not very hungry.” And wow, he must really feel morose to not want to eat.

“Take it anyways, in case you get hungry on the way home.”

Rodney sighs, but picks up the donut and stuffs it in his jacket pocket. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” Rodney sighs and gulps down the rest of his drink. They may be in a fight, but he’s still Madison’s father and he’s got to be home for her. He’s digging in his pants for some money when John waves at him. “It’s on me.”

“Really?”

“First time customers get a cup free.” John gives him that small, smirk-like grin that he used to shoot him before The Fight. “See you around, Ingram.”

“Thanks.” He hesitates, then heads out the door. He feels something in his chest loosen as he gives John a quick, crooked smile through the windows. At least there’s one person he count on to always be there.


	5. Fantastic Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Rodney accidentally exposes himself and his friends to Lorentzian radiation with...unexpected results.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Say 12 - Economics and Work](https://14valentines.livejournal.com/106196.html)

When Rodney finally took a break from his work--he no longer needed to eat or drink, though sleep was still a necessity, damnit--he found that it was nearly two am. He stretched, which, thanks to the exposure to Lorentzian radiation, meant he literally stretched across the room. He winced when his knuckles rapped the light fixture, and he brought his limbs back to their normal size before deciding to see what everyone was up to.

Teyla, unable to fit through the bedroom doorways anymore, was sleeping in the common room on the ultra-strong mattress Rodney had made just for her so she could sleep on something other than the floor. He was still getting used to seeing her new bulky form. Interestingly, her rocky exterior was of a similar tone to her skin, and Rodney had a theory about why the color didn’t change, but since there was no way he was ever doing that experiment again he couldn‘t prove it. Not until he fulfilled his promise to return her to normal and there was a definitive way to reverse the changes to the four of them.

She said she didn’t blame him, but Rodney still felt guilty that Teyla’s fiance had deserted her.

There was no immediate sign of John or Ronon, but stretching his neck to the second floor he discovered the balcony doors were open. Stepping up to the floor, he readjusted his body back to normal--it was going to take forever to get used to that--and stepped outside. It was a little chilly, but his uniform kept the worst of the night chill out. Looking up, he saw a glowing streak flying recklessly in the sky and knew he’d found his third teammate.

That just left his fourth, who was undoubtedly skulking about this very balcony. Fortunately, he wore a leather coat that was unaffected by the radiation, and didn’t disappear with the rest of him. “Stop sulking,” he ordered as he stepped up to the invisible man, bumping his shoulder. “So you can’t fly. At least you can create a personal shield, not that it kept Larrin’s hands off you.”

“Ew,” came the laconic reply, invisibility melting away to reveal John, squinting at the sky. “And she didn’t touch me.”

“No, she just kidnapped you to her underground lair with genetically engineered fungus and tried to talk you into being her ‘special friend’ because she’d been secretly watching you all these years.”

“The whole ancient underground civilization thing was kinda cool.”

“Yes, yes, totally cool. Up until it was used to try and kill us-” A wave of heat and flash of light signaled the return of Ronon. “And would you be careful! You nearly singed me!”

“Relax, McKay.” Ronon nodded to John.

“I cannot relax when showing off! You know the General doesn’t want us out like that!”

Ronon merely rolled his eyes and headed inside. “Whatever.”

“Hey! I’m not finished you big ape-”

“Easy, Rodney,” John said, grabbing his extending arm. “He bites at this hour. Remember?”

Rodney felt his cheeks flush as he remembered the last time he and John were up at this hour. “Yes, well, now that he’s back are you done skulking about? You’re freezing my lab.”

“It’s good for the computers.” John turned his gaze upward as Rodney tugged him towards the door.

“Christ. Fine, if you stop lusting after Ronon’s power I promise to make you a really cool ship.”

John immediately perked up. “Really?”

“Well, we need a way to get around and save the world.”

John grinned and bumped his shoulder against Rodney’s. “Knew there was a reason I let you sleep with me.”

“You’re just with me for my genius inventions,” he groused back even as his arm wound twice around John’s waist.


	6. Beetlejuice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “John Sheppard thought he had a pretty good life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Day 14 - V-Day and International](http://community.livejournal.com/14valentines/107135.html)

John Sheppard thought he had a pretty good life. Sure, what had happened in the service had been pretty shitty, and there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think of Dex and Mitch, but the hurt was slowly fading, and the discharge was seeming more and more like a blessing than a curse. He’d found an isolated house in Colorado Springs where he could live off his pension (and his contributions to mathematical publications) and made it comfortable.

It was a large house, almost too big for one person, but John was ever hopeful in finding someone. In the Air Force he’d never found himself at a loss for company--male or female. So he figured it was only a matter of time before the enormous master bedroom had another set of furniture, and the currently empty third bedroom became his son’s (or daughter’s) room.

The only odd part was the garage. The house was on a hill, and situated “above” the garage, which meant he had to take a flight of stairs down, going through three sets of doors, all of which locked. It was weird, but he didn’t remove any of the doors; they gave the house character, in his opinion. And the garage was large enough that he began building himself a small plane. His goal was to finish it before the (at this point, theoretical) wedding so he and his bride could fly off to the Bahamas for their honeymoon.

All that changed on the late afternoon of August 16th. He was driving home after running to town to grab a few extra bolts for his plane project. He’d met a lovely woman named Sam Carter, who was smart and beautiful and offered up her number along with the words “It’s Colonel Carter,” which excited John in ways he didn’t want to explore alone. So he’d been driving in a good mood, softly singing to the Johnny Cash on his radio and thinking he’d give Colonel Carter a call tonight, when a puppy ran into the road.

John didn’t even think. He swerved to miss the helpless canine and slammed his car into one of the hundred year old oaks in someone’s front yard. He was unconscious immediately.

It was midnight when he woke up. He was in his house, there was a fire in the fireplace, and he couldn’t recall a single detail after hitting the tree. He didn’t seem hurt, nothing was broken, the only thing wrong were those missing ten hours. He looked in the mirror, to double check for injuries, and found himself staring at…nothing. He stared. He stared and tried not to panic because he was the cool, collected, laid back John Sheppard and nothing could rattle him.

His eyes trailed to the strange book on his coffee table entitled ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.’

“Well crap.”

And it went downhill from there.

* * *

In life, Lorne had been John’s best friend in Colorado Springs. He was a Major in the Air Force, and was working in NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain. Since John had no family (his father was dead, his mother had passed away long ago, and he was an only child), he’d listed Evan Lorne as his next of kin. John had done everything to try and get his friend’s attention, and all he’d ended up doing was causing the curtains to billow (which Lorne ignored, since he’d opened the windows) and form ripples in Lorne‘s water glass.

All in all, a depressing day.

John didn’t have much stuff, but what he had Lorne neatly packed away and brought to the eBay store to sell off. It was only quick thinking and lots of focus that John was able to lock the final door into the garage (the big electric door had been busted for a month, and John hadn’t gotten around to fixing it since there wasn’t any rush). Lorne had given up trying to get in, and John spent the rest of the week locked in with his plane, learning to manipulate inanimate objects so he could continue building his dream.

Maybe he could fly over the endless sand dunes and giant striped roaring worms (snakes?) that now appeared whenever he left the house.

When he next ventured into the house, he found it devoid of all his things, stripped and bare as the first day he saw it. Then he heard the footsteps and found himself face to face with the very realtor who had sold him the place. Ms. Miko was as polite and firm as she had been with John, and Lorne was simply nodding. He looked fine, but John could see the hurt whenever Miko turned to look at something. “I’m sorry,” he said, placing his hand just above Evan’s shoulder. “I wish I were still here.” He’d forgotten death sucked both ways.

After that day, though, Evan never returned, and John returned to his garage because seeing people parade through his house as if he wasn’t there (which, he mentally reminded himself, he technically wasn’t) made his chest ache. Even with the seemingly endless swarm of buyers, though, no one wanted the house. John couldn’t understand why, but it gave him more time to work on his plane (he had enough supplies to keep going for a few months, and he could cannibalize his dusty motorcycle to tinker with building an engine), so he didn‘t think about it much.

And then there was such a ruckus in the house that he could hear it while buried in the guts of his plane, and he realized someone had finally purchased the last bit of his life.

* * *

What he found was a man only a few inches shorter than him, with blazing blue eyes and receding hair and a mouth that never seemed to close. From what he read on the paperwork, this was one Doctor Rodney McKay. And for some unfathomable reason, he had purchased John’s house without even looking at it (because he would’ve heard the yelling in the basement if he HAD come to see the house).

“No, no, no, no! Ronon!” McKay snapped his fingers, and a seven-foot Hawaiian (or Polynesian, John wasn’t sure) with dreadlocks and muscles turned to look at Rodney from where he was feeling along the tiled counters. From the header of the forms, Ronon was in charge of a construction company.

“Yeah, McKay?”

“This whole room has to go!”

“Hey!” The protest was involuntary, but John had rebuilt portions of this house, and the kitchen floor was one of his tedious, but finer accomplishments.

“Rodney, you will have aneurysm.” The short red-head (whose hair was crazy and had glasses that made him look like a mad doctor) patted Rodney’s arm. “Whole room is not bad. Windows look out upon the town.”

“Great, then a million people can look back in at me! And while they SHOULD be looking up at me,” to this, John saw everyone in the room roll their eyes, “I’d rather not be spied on by some peeping tom!”

“It’s only a problem if you’re not decent in the kitchen, Rodney,” the Scottish man wasn’t quite smiling, but there was an aura of mirth about him.

Rodney turned slightly red. “That’s none of your business!”

“Come, come, as your physician-”

“Carson! You’re not helping! YOU pushed me to buy this godforsaken monstrosity because YOU thought I needed some place that was quiet and refreshing and it’s HORRIBLE!”

John could understand the reason, but still, McKay didn’t have to insult his home, or even wreck it. But…John had come to terms with the fact that he was a ghost, and an apparent prisoner, and while it would tear at him to see his home gutted, he would just have to tolerate McKay until his sentence was up. Nonetheless, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be very happy with this Rodney McKay.

“I wanted a stainless steel kitchen, and as nice as this tiled counter is, it’s cheap and fake and I’ll bet Ronon could break it without any effort!” The construction worker shrugged. “I want this place state-of-the-art! I need the wiring ripped out and replaced because it’s decades behind what it should be--obviously the last owner wanted to live in a tinder box,” John’s frown deepened, “and I want a wrecking ball taken to that second bedroom so I can expand it into a proper lab!”

“I’ve already got my guys working on it, Dr. McKay.” The rant didn’t seem to bother Ronon, and if John had to guess, the man had heard it already.

Carson, with a calm smile and a gentle touch, led Rodney out of the kitchen. John followed automatically, walking along side the crazy-haired scientist (until he knew otherwise, John was going to stick with his first impression). “Let’s let the man do his job, Rodney. And have you seen the upstairs?”

“Of course I’ve seen the upstairs! If I could put in an elevator I would because those steps are just begging for me to trip and break my neck and cause the world to lose its greatest intellectual asset!” Rodney snapped his fingers and pointed at said stairs, which had movers carrying a large and (considering how much they were struggling) heavy mattress. “You ruin its firmness or break that banister and I’ll have you both deported to whatever backwater country you’re from!”

“They are from Wisconsin, Rodney.”

“That’s backwater enough, Radek.” Rodney suddenly stopped, blinking at the front door. John stepped to the side and he felt himself smile at seeing Lorne there. Ms. Miko was with him, smiling at Rodney, though why, he couldn’t guess. “Who the hell are you?”

Lorne frowned. “I’m Major Lorne. You’ve seen me on base-”

Rodney waved his hand. “Whatever. If you have my equipment, the lab’s not ready. Come back in a week.”

John shot a dark look at McKay. Who was he to just dismiss Evan as a dumb grunt?

“Equipment?!” Carson broke in before anyone else could respond. “You’re supposed ta be relaxing not-”

“I’ll relax fine without all those idiots around me! If I have nothing I’ll be bored to tears and start building nuclear bombs in the garage again.” At that, everyone but Radek and Carson froze. “Non-functional,” he yelled to the room at large. “It’s all basic stuff, just research that I’ve been putting off. Nothing that’ll cause me to have a heart attack or wipe out half of the city.”

Radek patted Rodney’s shoulder. “Do not worry, Carson. I will stop by, make sure he is not working himself to death.” He glanced at Ms. Miko. “Or making bombs. Of any sort.”

There was a collective sigh of relief, which caused Rodney to let out an irritated huff. “So,” he finally returned his attention to Evan and Ms. Miko, “what’re you here for?”

“Oh,” Miko squeaked, then waved to Lorne. “This is Mr. Lorne, he sold the house.”

“Beginning to wish I hadn’t,” Evan muttered under his breath. John simply nodded. “Anyways,” he continued, louder, “I was going through some of John’s stuff and found the spare master key he’d given me.” Lorne held it out and, after a minute where Rodney looked Lorne over, the key was snatched away so quickly John felt Lorne jump back right through him. “And, uh,” Lorne coughed, “I noticed some guys tearing up the porch?”

“What?!” John ran to the living room window--since he couldn’t actually go out the front door--and found that, indeed, his porch was being torn up. His beautiful, handcrafted, solid wood porch he’d spent an entire summer on because it made for a wonderful sunrise view and glorious shady afternoon nap spot, was being ripped apart by construction workers with crowbars and hammers. “You leave that alone, damnit!”

“I don’t like porches, and I intend to stay inside where things like bees which, you know, can kill with one sting if you’re allergic, like I am, can’t get you.” Rodney glanced right through John to the outside. “If I want to enjoy the outside, I’ll look out the very safe, very clean windows.”

Evan’s voice took on a darker edge. “You know, John put a lot of work into that porch. You really shouldn’t just…rip it out because you’re afraid of bees.”

“You’ve never had an anaphylactic attack, have you?” Rodney waved his hand to the side, as if brushing off the question. “And as for you’re friend, I’m here, he’s not. Since he’s not using the porch--or this house for that matter--I’m not going to pander to his emotional attachment to some craft project he did with some help books from the Home Depot.” Rodney’s brow furrowed for a moment. “In fact, your friend is dead, so really? No reason to discuss it. It’s not like he’ll be back-”

“Rodney!” Carson shot Evan an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.”

Evan glared at Rodney, turned, and stomped out of the house. Ms. Miko bowed, then quickly followed. John stared at Lorne’s back, then turned a glare on Rodney McKay. Rodney could do as he liked with the house, but no one treated his friend like that. One way or another, John was going to see McKay out of this house, if it took every haunting skill a ghost like him had.

* * *

Unfortunately, the vow was easier declared than carried out.

He’d found out many things listening to McKay rant: he was allergic to bees, citrus could kill him, he was an astrophysicist with a crush on a Colonel Carter (the same Carter that had given him her number all that time ago), and he couldn’t stand idiots--of which everyone and their mother was with few exceptions.

He’d also found all these out while trying to scare McKay. He’d tried hanging himself from the bedroom fan, which Rodney turned on and John was nearly motion sick. Then he’d tried moving small objects about; a glass of water here, an epipen there, nothing large like a bookcase, just little things. McKay didn’t even notice, and when he did he verbally lashed out at the workers around him; one of them (a college kid, John guessed) even burst out crying. He’d even tried dressing up in a sheet to play Casper, but it seemed Radek had pulled a similar stunt at Rodney’s last house, and McKay simply shot off a nasty email regarding the Czech’s parentage.

The only thing he HAD done that had frustrated Rodney was keep the garage door locked shut. Every time someone tried to use the master key, John pushed it back out of the lock. Or if he didn’t have time to do that, simply held it shut with his bodyweight. There was talk of using an ax, but someone (from the accent, John guessed Carson) mentioned that without a garage Rodney was less likely to build any bombs. That seemed to be the end of the matter, and no one bothered trying to get in again.

He was sitting on a stool with his hands clenching his hair when he remembered the book. On the whole, it was worthless as it read like an instruction manual (a really dull one convoluted with legalize), but there were some things he’d understood. He was a ghost, he was trapped in his house (as if he couldn’t figure out those two things on his own), and there was a way to call for help. All he needed was some chalk, a wall, and knocking three times.

With no other recourse, John shrugged, dug out a marker (it wasn’t chalk, but he figured as long as he did the rest, it’d be fine), and went to work. Everything he was trying to do was failing, maybe it was time to see the higher ups for help. Granted, he still thought it was a little nuts, but when the stone cracked loose from the wall and mist and green light appeared, he tossed his pen aside and wandered in to get help from the great beyond.

* * *

“If this is it, I’m really disappointed.” John had appeared in a waiting room. A waiting room with lime green walls, worn yellow leather benches, and magazines dating back fifty years. It actually reminded John of the dentist’s office his father took him to as a kid. The main difference were in the clients. It was an office full of unusual dead people, instead of officers.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one man in uniform, a marine. Young, brown skinned, but what really made John avoid him was the fact that even though there was a huge hole in his chest (and John could actually see his lungs), he was grinning; with bright eyes and an eager-to-please aura about him. John smiled and nodded, and stepped just slightly away from him.

The next person was a kid, dressed in fur and leather like some sort of aborigine. He looked perfectly normal…except for the arrow in his neck and the piranhas hanging from some of his flesh. He was kneeling on the ground coloring in one of those “spot the hidden object” pages in a magazine. John made sure to avoid the still wriggling fish as he stepped over the kid’s legs.

The next person was sitting on the other side of the room. He looked like someone that had been barbequed. He was covered in ash, from head to toe. Only his eyes were white because, as John saw when the man opened his mouth to yawn, his teeth were gone (blown away, from the looks of things). Beside the ash man was a brown-haired woman, glowing green and molting flesh. She looked like a living survivor of some sort of radiation experiment gone wrong--and then realized she probably was. Hiding a wince, he nodded once more, then stood in front of receptionist’s window.

“Uh, hello? I’m here for some help?” The window slid open quickly, and John was faced with an older bald man. He blinked slowly, to make sure he really was seeing a man wearing a Miss Argentina sash along with a tiny bikini. The little sign said ‘Receptionist Caldwell.’ He wasn’t sure what to make of the man’s uniform, but no one else seemed bothered by it. “Um, hi. I’m John Sheppard, I’m having a bit of trouble with a person at my house.”

“Take a seat.” The voice was gruff, firm, and reminded John of many of his superiors. He couldn’t hide the grin at the realization. “Your caseworker will be with you shortly.” The window was slammed shut, and John kept grinning, even as it slid open again and Caldwell stood, revealing that, yes, he was indeed wearing nothing else. “Case number 5,478,458; Mr. Grodin, Ms. Weir.” Caldwell then sat back down, and once more John was facing a window.

The ash man and glowing woman stood and walked past John to the door in the corner, which opened by itself, let them in, then shut closed. Out of curiosity, John tried the knob and found it locked. Shrugging again, he took one of the empty seats and picked up a Newsweek from 1966. He felt someone staring, caught hole-in-his-chest grinning at him out of the corner of his eye, and scooted down. He really didn’t want to get involved with anyone else here.

John got through about half the article when the window opened again. “Sheppard!” John jumped up, snapping to attention by impulse. “You don’t have an appointment?”

“Sir, no, sir!” He shook off his conditioning. “I didn’t really know how…or for who. I just need help.”

Caldwell snorted. “You only have three vouchers, soldier. Don’t use them all up in the first year.”

“I won’t.” At least, he didn’t think he would. Still standing, and feeling a bit like an idiot, he glanced around the room to find both the kid and the marine looking at him. He shifted his feet. “I’m kinda new at this.”

“You get used to it,” the marine said. “It’s actually kinda fun. Just watch out for Jewish Stars.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Not crosses?”

“Naw.” The man waved his hand. “It’s the stars that do the damage. You ever see how sharp those points are?” He rubbed his chest, right over the hole. “Still smarts, even after all this time.”

John stared at the smiling man, trying to figure out if he was pulling his leg or not, when Caldwell stood up again. “Case number 8,329,002. Sheppard!”

John waited a beat, then nodded at the two other people and headed for the now opening door. Frankly, the sooner he met with his caseworker, the better. This place was just weirding him out. Standing on the other side of the door, he nearly got body slammed by, well, a body. As he looked up, he found it was a hanging body of a very good looking blond woman. A blond woman with a noose around her neck. He felt his stomach roil, even though there was nothing in it to throw up.

“Sheppard? Just follow me.” She started moving, and John saw her rope was on a track that crisscrossed the ceiling. “I hear you got stuck with McKay.”

“How’d you hear that?”

She grinned, which would’ve been fairly comforting if her neck weren’t broken leaving her head hanging at an angle. “Word gets around, and haunted houses are very rare. Plus, McKay’s been a problem before. But I bet you can kick his ass.”

A problem? “How exactly was he a problem?”

“Oh, you know. Drove one of our insane ghosts sane. Man, that was a horrible loss. Guy threw great parties.”

John kept his eye on the skeleton secretaries before turning his attention back to the blond. “Really?”

“Well, not really. But he hasn’t been the same since he tried possessing McKay.” She suddenly jerked. “Whoops, that’s my stop. Just go down this hall, second door on the right. Look out for the room of Lost Souls. They prey on the new guys.” She started moving back across the room. “Catch ya later Sheppard!”

He watched her go, then scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He really couldn’t take much more of this. As he lowered his hands, a paper flew in front of his eyes, and he snatched it out of the air. ‘Having problems with the Living? Need to exorcise unwanted houseguests? The blessings of Athar can help you. Just pray to her acolyte, Chaya.’ The last name was repeated twice more.

Balling the paper up, John tossed it onto the floor, marched to the second door on the right (it actually looked like a hospital door, complete white with a small rectangular window above the doorknob), jerked the door open and entered his caseworker’s office.

* * *

“You were gone almost four months, John Sheppard.” The voice was soothing, calming even. John saw a woman above him, and realized he was on the floor because he had stormed into the room and promptly hit his head against a hanging frying pan. “John, can you hear me?”

“Yeah…why do you have a pan in your office?”

The woman smiled, bright teeth and an almost sympathetic glow around her, as she held his hand and used her other arm to help him sit up. “We are in your house, John.”

“What’re you talking about? I keep my pans-” As John sat up, he got a look at the room. It was a kitchen, stainless steel and top of the line, but the floor plan was exactly as he remembered it. The cabinets hadn’t moved, pans were hanging on the ceiling (one of which extended beyond the island, and John so hoped McKay forgot that fact every now and then), and the view out the window was exactly as he remembered it (apparently, they’d left the window in).

“Jesus…how long-” Then he remembered what she’d said. “Four months?! I’d barely read the magazine!”

“Time moves differently on the other side.” The woman helped him to his feet. She was stouter than him, but the strength he felt suggested she could take him in a fight. She looked Indian, and her calm did radiate like that one monk he’d met overseas; but the single bullet hole in her forehead spoke of a different lifestyle. “I am Teyla, your caseworker.”

“Great,” he rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Great, that’s great. That means you can help me, right? Get rid of McKay?”

Her smile dimmed. “I’m afraid I have many other cases I must attend to. I am simply here to encourage you.”

“Encourage?! How the hell-”

“You have read the manual, correct?”

He ducked his head. “Well, no.”

She let out a sigh, something between ‘I’m disappointed’ to ‘foolish man, of course you didn’t read the manual.’ “Chapter four clearly explains how to interact with the material world. Specifically, haunting, as you do know how to do some things.” She lifted a salt shaker. “Pouring this over the ground?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, not that great. But even when I put a sheet over my head, it didn’t work.”

“There are other things you can do. Read chapter four.” She nodded, then glanced around the kitchen. “It’s not exactly rattling chains,” she tapped her finger against the hanging pan, “but it could be as effective.”

John felt his grin start to return, and he nodded. “No wonder they pay you the big bucks.”

“I am merely a humble servant living out her thousand year sentence.” She bowed her head. “Until next time, John.” Then she stepped into the shadows and vanished.

“Hey, what about Chai, or whatever,” he called, but got no reply. Shrugging, he tapped the pan with his finger, grinned, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and started moving about the house while whistling. It was time to get used to his home again.

* * *

John realized it must’ve cost McKay a fortune to renovate the house, and that wasn’t even counting the stuff he couldn’t see (such as the wiring, plumbing, and other internal changes). Now John understood why Ronon put up with McKay’s bitching in the beginning. The payoff from this job would totally be worth dealing with the pain-in-the-ass.

The man himself was asleep in bed, lying on his stomach and head turned to the side. It looked awkward and painful, but Rodney (he couldn’t keep calling him McKay, he WAS living with the guy, after all…sorta) was snoring away peacefully, a little puddle of drool on the sheets. He was also a heavy sleeper (he discovered this by making moaning noises and rattling some safe-looking trinkets around), but John could explore just how heavy another day.

And John definitely ignored the tiny part of his mind that said Rodney looked cute asleep. The Labrador incident when he was twelve had taught him that cute sleeping things were exactly as they appeared…until awakened. He’d seen what Rodney was capable of, and there was no way his innocent sleeping act would convince John he was anything but an abrasive asshole.

The lab was state-of-the-art, like the rest of the house, and while John was tempted to do some damage there, he was almost afraid to. He wanted to scare Rodney away, but he didn’t want to kill the guy. Mainly because no one deserved to die no matter how much of a bastard they were, but also because John was worried (only worried, and absolutely not terrified) that Rodney would then be a ghost stuck in the house as well.

It still offered some opportunities. John was a fast learner, and by watching Rodney he could figure out what data to safely screw around with, what settings he could adjust without blowing up the house. After all, if scaring wouldn’t work, then annoying computer glitches and ruining research might be enough to run Rodney off. Convinced he had a plan, he left and went back down to the basement.

Stretching as he entered, he paused and looked around, hazel eyes narrowing. The place seemed…cleaner than he remembered. And if he’d really been gone four months, shouldn’t there be more dust? Then he saw his plane and his suspicions melted, because she looked like the most beautiful thing in the world. The rest of his home had been demolished, but this…this was still his. Petting the side affectionately, he whispered sweet nothings to its propeller, then went over to his cot and fell asleep.

Tomorrow he’d catch up on Chapter 4, as Teyla suggested, then go and find Rodney, and he would finally reclaim his house.

* * *

While John got up with the sun (a habit he hadn’t been able to break, no matter how long he’d been discharged from the military), he didn’t actually venture forth from his basement until the early afternoon. All his plans were put on hold as he spent the morning tearing apart the garage, then combing the rest of the downstairs (he had avoided the upstairs since he’d died) looking for ‘The Handbook for the Recently Deceased.’

He’d thought he’d left it on the small workbench by his cot, but it wasn’t there. Finally, he simply gave up. It was entirely possible, he realized, that he had brought it through the stone door into the waiting room from hell and simply…forgot. Or maybe he’d dropped it after crossing the threshold of the door. With a sigh, he realized he’d have to go back and look for it, but it wasn’t a priority. After all, the book was simply a guide, and John already knew how to manipulate the material world enough that he didn’t really need it.

He’d look for the book after McKay was out of the house. How long could it take?

Heading upstairs, he checked first the kitchen (Rodney struck him as the type to eat a lot), then the living room, then stuck his head in the lab. No Rodney. Frowning, John headed upstairs and checked the bedroom. No Rodney, but his eyebrows rose as he found his Handbook. Carefully eyeing the room, half expecting something to jump out at him or an alarm to go off, John walked over and picked up the book. Still giving the room a wary look, he flipped through and, yes, this was definitely his book.

Maybe Teyla had moved it. Yeah, that was it. Because there was no way McKay could’ve gotten into the garage.

Unless Rodney had used the master key.

But his stuff was there, and untouched, so that couldn’t be.

Tucking the book under his arm, John headed downstairs and ran to his garage, setting the book back on his workbench. He sat on his bed, head propped up on his palms, watching it for a while. Finally he muttered, “idiot, of course it didn’t move by itself,” stood up, and hurried back upstairs. He had a scientist to find.

And find he did. What had been John’s (future) nursery Rodney had turned into a guest room and library. Rodney was currently sitting on a futon, letting the sun shine in and warm his legs, while reading through some scientific magazine. John carefully looked around the room, then found a set of heavy books standing on the top of a bookcase with no bookend. Perfect.

Walking over, he reached up to push them, when something made him freeze.

Specifically, a voice.

”Knock those over and I’ll make your afterlife a living hell.”

Ever so slowly, John turned his head towards Rodney. The man kept reading for another minute, then huffed and looked up, the magazine settling between his legs. “What? Don’t tell me you’re a retarded ghost!” He snapped his fingers at John. “Arm down.”

Still stunned, John let his arm drop. “You…can see me?”

McKay threw up his hands. “Of course I can see you! Figures I’d buy the one house with an idiot for a ghost!” He tilted his head. “You know, for a dead guy, you look hot--well, not at the moment. You look like all the blood’s drained away. Are you okay?”

John simply collapsed on the edge of the futon, struck dumb.

‘So much for my plan to haunt McKay into retreat,’ he finally thought.

* * *

“You know, it’s funny, you’d think as a ghost you couldn’t be surprised. Also, that’s a rather nasty scar on your forehead. Don’t they have doctors in the afterlife; voodoo practitioners that they are.”

John stared numbly at the man before him. He knew McKay was alive. There was mail on the table addressed to him, a coffee maker brewing coffee, a lab running simulations. There was no way Rodney was dead, which begged the question of how he could see John. “I…how can you see me?!”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “You left your book in plain view. And I’ve always known there had to be more than just rotting in the ground. I may not be strange and unusual, as the manual--and really, could it be anymore convoluted?--states, but once I had confirmation in my beliefs, obviously the whole ‘ghosts are invisible and can’t be seen by mortal eyes’ was thrown away.” He crossed his arms. “The gash?”

Instinctively, John reached up to his forehead. He actually hadn’t noticed a gash. He hadn’t felt any pain since his death, and he had no reflection. “I…I guess I got it when I died.” He must’ve hit his head on the steering wheel, or the dashboard, or maybe some glass from the windshield had sliced him. Shaking off the distracting thought trail, he pushed back his bewildered feelings. “How’d you get into the garage?”

“Hello! Master key ring a bell? I stole it from Carson and went to see what the fuss was about.” Rodney actually paused, tilting his head. “Are you building that plane? Cause it’s pretty much a waste of time, what with being unable to leave the interior of this ever so humble abode.” He crossed his arms. “Though what you have done? Pretty good. No where near as complex as a bomb.”

For some reason, that sounded almost like a compliment (at least, coming from McKay). “Thanks…?”

“Waste of time, but then, I guess since you’re dead, you’re remarkably bored. But that won’t keep you busy for 125 years.”

John scowled slightly. “You know, you really should--” What Rodney said finally registered. “Wait, 125 years?! I’m stuck here for over a century?!”

“Didn’t you read the book?” Rodney looked him over, then snorted. “Dumb question. You’re stuck here, within the boundaries of the foundation of this house for 125 years, after which you’ll be allowed to leave to,” Rodney waved his hand upward, “somewhere. It’s not very specific on that point.”

John had pretty much figured that much out, but he hadn’t thought he’d be here so long. “I…how did I get stuck on Earth that long?”

“Actually, you’re lucky. According to the book, most ghosts are stuck to a road, or a sign, or become some sort of administrative servants. Most have a least 200 years of service, or more. You should count your blessings.” Rodney smirked. “Or maybe not, since blessings might hurt you.”

John briefly recalled Teyla’s comment of 1000 year service and shuddered. “Great,” his shoulders slumped. “Stuck with you for decades. I was hoping I’d be gone by then.”

“Hey! How do you think I feel? Last place I had a ghost he tried to make me sleepwalk out a window!” Rodney crossed his arms. “And judging by your lack of knowledge of your predicament not to mention your rather childish attempt to disrupt my afternoon, I’d say you’re new at this.”

John crossed his arms and glared at Rodney, sulking on the inside.

“So I’ll make it simple. Stay in the garage and build your little plane, leave me and my research alone, and I won’t haul my exorcist out here and condemn you to Purgatory.” Mouth twisted smugly, he picked up his magazine. “Now I’m busy, so go oil your gears or whatever it is you’re working on.”

John let out a growl. “Bite me, McKay.” Rodney ignored him, and John turned to stomp out of the room. At the last minute, he reached up and knocked the books off the top of the bookcase. As far as John was concerned, McKay might understand the Handbook better, but John was an ex-soldier.

And this? This…was war.

* * *

John started small. Stopping the simulations Rodney left running through the night, deactivating the automatic coffee maker, turning off the hot water heater while McKay was in the shower. Petty stuff, really, but it was only the opening salvo. Rodney, of course, kept no citrus in the house (and John wasn’t about to play with the man’s life), but John screwed up the rest of the food. He poured salt into the milk, turned down the freezing unit of the fridge to spoil the food earlier, and pushed the plethora of sugar foodstuffs near windows to encourage ants.

Rodney was upset, but it was the coffee maker that led to utensils flying towards--and consequently, through--John’s head. After seeing the destruction, and how Rodney dealt with the cleaning service, John decided to leave the coffee alone. He wanted to be annoying, but Rodney had made three of the cleaning women cry taking out his anger over the coffee loss. Other than that, though, the softening of McKay’s defenses was complete.

Phase two took longer. Not just stopping the simulations, but altering the variables and then rerunning them, so that Rodney had to start from scratch. Rearranging layouts took over a week; changing drawers in the kitchen, shuffling what shelves held DVDs and books in the living room, and his personal favorite: completely reorganizing the library from Rodney’s system to stored via color coding of the spine. It meant he had to sleep in the afternoon, when Rodney was gone, but it left him highly satisfied.

At least, until the next Saturday, when Rodney caught him moving his clothes about. “I should’ve known you were trying to get into my boxers. You look sort of slutty.”

John yanked his hands from the underwear drawer and glared at McKay, fighting the blush he knew was appearing on his face. “I don’t think there’s anyone who wants to get into your boxers, McKay.”

Rodney sniffed. “I’ll have you know that there will be plenty of women fighting to get into them once I win the Nobel Prize.”

“From the way your research is going, you won’t have to worry about it for a long time.”

That caused Rodney to scowl, and he crossed his arms. “That’s why you’re going to stop interfering.’

John grinned. “Of course, McKay.”

“I mean it,” the scowl deepened. “Keep this up, and you’ll be sorry.”

“What, you’ll throw another fork through my head?”

A cruel smirk appeared on Rodney’s face. “You’d be surprised what damage a sledgehammer can do.” That wiped the smile off John’s face. “You try to lock me out, I’ll get Ronon to rip the main door off and let him haul that junk away. You can make life annoying for me, but I can make your eternity so dull you’ll wish for exorcism.”

John stood up and loomed over Rodney. “If you so much as breathe on my plane, I’ll-”

“Make my life annoying. Yes, you’ve shown me you can do that.” McKay looked smug.

John wanted nothing more than to wipe that look off Rodney’s face. Clenching his fists, John growled, “You win this time, McKay.” Then he stomped through the open door and back down to his garage. There’d be a point, he knew, where he’d be willing to sacrifice his plane; but he wasn’t there yet. He’d scale back the overt warfare, but he wouldn’t stop it. He’d find a way. It would take longer than his initial plans, but he’d find a way around this obstacle.

Hopefully, without sacrificing the lone anchor to his life.

* * *

An opportunity presented itself within a month, when Radek came by to spend a few nights while running lab simulations with McKay. John didn’t want to reveal his presence to the man, but he could still hang around the lab and screw with McKay to the point that Radek thought he was nuts. It was a good plan, one that had him grinning and rubbing his hands together. He let them have dinner hassle-free, but made sure to be in the lab sitting on top of the large mainframe against the wall facing the door.

The sour face McKay threw him upon entering was worth the climb up (one of these days he’d master levitation, but he hadn’t gotten the hang of it yet). Legs spread wide and hands planted in front of him, he kicked his feet and fiddled with the dials absently, humming an idle tune and pretending to ignore the dark glares McKay kept shooting him.

“You are grinding teeth. Is computer being stupid?”

“No,” McKay ground out. “The ghost is annoying me.”

John sat up at that. He didn’t expect Rodney to admit his existence so easily.

“Ah,” Radek said knowingly, adjusting his glasses. “What is he doing now. Stopping simulations? Pouring salt in drink? Or maybe turning off monitors.”

John’s grin widened. From the tone, it sounded to John as if Radek didn’t believe Rodney. He stuck his tongue out at Rodney, then started humming ‘It’s a Small World.’

“Oh my god! You are the most juvenile specter I’ve ever met! Do me a favor and throw yourself to the worms!” Rodney stormed in front of the mainframe, hands landing on hips and glare aimed firmly up at John.

“Please, ghost,” Radek didn’t look up from where he was typing something. “If you must annoy Rodney, do so when he is not entertaining. He is most difficult to control without your disruptions.”

“Oh please! I can think rings around you even if this idiot is bothering me!” He swiped at one of John’s legs, then stomped back to his workstation. “You just want to buy time to catch up!”

“Yes, I am slow as slug. It must be so trying for you to slow down for me.”

“You’re just jealous.” Rodney glared at John one last time, then started typing.

John sat there a moment longer, then hopped down and walked around the lab, touching random objects that made Rodney tense up. By the time John was standing behind Rodney’s monitor, McKay’s neck had almost vanished between his hunched shoulders. Grinning widely, John reached over the screen and hovered his finger just above it, waving it back and forth. “I’m not bothering you, am I?”

The grind of Rodney’s teeth was audible even to Radek, who looked up and blinked. “He is annoying, yes?”

“Yes,” Rodney ground out. “The most annoying creature I have ever encountered. More annoying than Kavanagh.” His voice was stiff, all barely controlled anger, and John responded by adding a second finger, walking them across the screen.

“There is nothing more annoying than Kavanagh. He is personification of annoyance.”

“Then this is the ghost of it.” A muscle on Rodney’s neck twitched, just barely visible between the blue fabric of the shirt.

“Then maybe call priestess again, yes?” A note of glee entered Radek’s voice. “The pretty one, with black hair?”

“She’s a medium, and I’m not calling her just so you can drool all over my house! You think I didn’t see you panting when she came to get rid of the last ghost?”

“She is pretty,” Radek’s face was turning red. “But I was not panting. Nor do I drool. You do, in your sleep. And when you see espresso beans.”

“They’re better than sex, you’re lucky I don’t do worse.” He waved at John’s arm, a futile attempt to bat it away. “Fine! If you promise not to turn into a teenage pervert I’ll call her! And you! Get away from my screen!” He slapped the monitor. “Or I’m getting that sledgehammer!”

John kept grinning as he moved over to the wall and slouched against it, crossing his arms and jutting his hips out. Rodney stared at him through narrow eyes for another minute, then got back to work. John kept glancing over to Radek, who obviously did believe in ghosts, or maybe believed in them to meet women. Either way, a medium was coming, and John had to admit to himself that he was curious.

Maybe he could convince her to help Rodney move out.

* * *

John was awoken by a doors slamming. That in of itself wasn’t unusual, Rodney was prone to violence against doors when upset. What was unusual was that it was three am, and McKay was always in bed by then. Scrubbing his eyes, John made his way upstairs, heard another door slam, and then nothing. Looking out the kitchen window, John saw Lorne’s car pull away at breakneck speed, and John frowned. Lorne didn’t voluntarily come to the house anymore, and at three am…

More awake now, John made his way around the house and found lights on, the bedroom and library in full disarray, and a trail of paperwork that McKay must’ve dropped in his hurry. The optimistic part of John was cheering, saying that McKay finally realized how terrible living with a disruptive ghost could be and bailed. Except he wouldn’t bail at three am, and Lorne wouldn’t be driving them. John shook his head and told his optimistic side to shut up. Something was wrong, something that couldn’t wait and as much as John didn’t like the guy, he didn’t exactly want to wish ill on the man’s family.

Unable to do anything, though, John headed back down to the basement and went back to sleep. He was willing to bet McKay would be ranting and raving about being woke in the middle of the night and let slip what the crisis was. Not that he really cared, John tried to tell himself as he pulled the blanket higher. He was just curious, that was all.

Come morning, however, John found the house just as empty, and stopped the coffee maker from brewing its second pot, a catastrophe in the making since the first was still full and waiting to be drunk. Staring at the brown liquid, a small sense of unease crept through John’s stomach. He didn’t care about McKay. He didn’t. But he’d also become accustomed to having someone around the house. It was weird, he’d never needed anyone before, but now he didn’t like that he was alone.

Probably because a tiny part of his mind doubted he actually existed without Rodney’s very verbal validation.

By noon, John was almost finished cannibalizing his motorcycle when he heard banging and curses upstairs. He could tell it wasn’t McKay, because the stomps were wrong, and despite the war between them, John really didn’t want anyone breaking into his house (even if it wasn’t technically his anymore). Running upstairs, he found the lab door open and the thief in question inside.

Except the thief was actually Lorne, in full military getup. “Lorne?” He said it before he thought, and tried not to wince as Lorne not only didn’t hear him, but dove right through him looking for something. John watched him scurry around the lab, gather half a dozen removable hard drives, then jog towards the door. With one hand, he flipped open his cell phone, and John jogged beside him to listen in.

“Doc, I got ‘em. How long before critical?”

John didn’t hear the reply because he hit the wall beside the front door, unable to move farther. That was fine, though, because he was more shaken by what Lorne said than anything else. He’d seen some of the work McKay and Radek were working on. Reactors, radiation…and it didn’t take his savant abilities in math to know that any accident involving that technology would wipe this place off the map of the US. Sitting down hard on the couch, John stared at the television, and wondered what would happen if he no longer had a house to haunt.

Sleep didn’t come to him, so John wandered around the house, eventually ending up in the library on the futon looking out into his backyard. It was one of the few things McKay hadn’t ruined after buying the house. In fact, he had it immaculately kept by three gardeners that were obviously more than just gardeners because John had seen them take soil samples and run chemical analysis right there in the yard.

It was the second day of Rodney’s absence, and normally those three gardeners were here, working on the yard. Instead, it was quiet save for the sounds of nature. John wondered if they’d been evacuated, if the whole town was empty except for a select few--including McKay--trying to prevent a meltdown. After a few hours of watching the birds dancing nervously about the yard, he got up, went downstairs, and picked up the phone, looking down McKay’s list of contacts.

It wasn’t until he dialed Carter’s number (he figured she’d recognize his voice) that he realized even if he got hold of somebody, McKay’s work was classified, and more importantly, he was dead. John could be screaming into the phone, and unless it was McKay that picked up, no one would hear him. Hell, even if McKay picked up there was no guarantee his ghost voice would travel across phone lines. Sighing, he hung up on the fourth ring, made his way back to the basement, and sat against his unfinished airplane.

If the end of the city was coming, he wanted to spend it with his pride and joy.

* * *

At some point, John realized he must’ve fallen asleep, because he heard a car, and then a weary voice come from upstairs, followed by an almost subdued shut of the front door. Getting up, John tried to look as nonchalant as possible as he walked upstairs and through the kitchen. He was expecting a ranting and raving Rodney, even after three days. He absolutely was not expecting to see this vulnerable, hollow man standing just inside the door looking lost.

It actually made John pause. Something had happened, something big and horrible, from the looks of things. He was willing to bet if he struck now, he could hurt McKay, hurt him badly enough that he’d want to leave and John would have the house to himself again. It was the perfect opportunity, the moment he’d been waiting for ever since he’d first seen the man. All he had to do was smirk and say something cutting and it’d be done. A swift and final victory in John’s little war.

He ended up walking over quietly and placing a hand just above McKay’s shoulder, mouth turned down, eyes wide. “McKay?”

Rodney’s blue eyes didn’t lose their glazed look, but they did focus on him somewhat. “Oh. Hi.” It sounded as if Rodney had forgotten John even existed. He glanced at John’s hand, and John pulled it back. Rodney looked at him again, blinking absently. “Hi,” he said again, obviously at a loss for words.

Apparently, John had lost his ability to go for the jugular after all this time. “You okay?” John prepped himself for scathing remarks over how McKay was obviously NOT okay, could he be any more blind, and why was he asking stupid questions?

“No,” was all Rodney said, frowning. “I need,” he glanced around, then felt the pockets of his jeans. “Keys. I put my keys…”

John knelt down and picked up the items in question from the floor, where Rodney must have dropped them. “You’re already inside.”

Rodney took the keys, looked for the one to the front door, before John could see his words register. “Oh. Right. Cause you can’t…” He waved back towards the door, before letting his arm hang limply. “Can we not,” he started, then stopped. Rodney’s face contorted, as if in pain for a moment. “I need sleep,” he finally said.

“You wanna go upstairs?” Rodney glanced past John, and the aggrieved look on his face was more than enough to convey how much he didn’t want to tackle stairs at the moment. “Or, you know, the couch is a foot to your left.”

Rodney nodded quietly, shrugged out of his black coat (military issue, from the looks of things), took two steps, then fell face first onto the couch, legs dangling over the armrest. John rolled his eyes, but walked over and pushed the coffee table back a few inches so Rodney wouldn’t roll over and hit it. When he turned around, Rodney was looking at him. “What?”

“You’ve been nice.”

John snorted. “I’ve been known to be. Especially when people aren’t assholes.”

The hint obviously didn’t penetrate Rodney’s mind. “Please leave.”

“What, no thank you?”

“I really,” and Rodney’s voice broke, wet and hurt and painful for one moment, “need to be alone.”

John could understand that. So he bumped the table back another inch, then left the room. At the threshold to the basement, he thought he heard sobbing coming from the living room, but it could just as well have been a stray cat. And as far as John was concerned, that’s all it was. He could respect a man’s need to cry in privacy, even if it was the heartless Rodney McKay.

Except now he didn’t seem quite so heartless after all.

* * *

John didn’t venture forth from his basement until well past noon. The coffee maker was still unplugged, but since John hadn’t been woken by a screaming McKay, he figured the man was still asleep. Just in case, though, he dumped out the old coffee and plugged the machine back in. He paused, as he realized this could be construed as being nice, then realized that Rodney didn’t think about coffee, just made sure it was prepped to be made for him every night.

Glancing into the living room, he found Rodney exactly as John left him the night before. Legs dangling over the end of the couch (though at some point Rodney had kicked his shoes off), lying on his belly, and head turned to the side with a little puddle of drool lying in front of his nose. It was rather disgusting, and John was willing to bet the man would be grousing about his back as soon as he woke up.

An hour later, when John was pouring a cup of coffee out of habit--not for McKay, it was habit, dammit--and staring out the kitchen window, he heard a grunt, and then pained grumbling. John turned just in time to see a barely-awake Rodney lumber in, eyes squinting and mouth scowling at the world. He plucked the cup John was holding and downed it in one long gulp before shoving the cup back at John.

John caught it at the last minute, and raised an eyebrow at Rodney. “You drank my coffee.”

“You’re dead. You need coffee like I need Kavanagh.” With that quip, he shuffled over to the coffee pot, pulled it off the hot plate, and drank from it as if it was a giant cup. John stared, wondering how the man wasn’t burning both his hands and lips. After finishing it, he set it down, let out something between a burp and a hiccup, and set about replacing the filter for a new pot.

Setting the cup on the counter, John moved so he was beside Rodney, crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow. “So, wild night?” Rodney’s hands froze for a moment, and when they resumed, John could see the faintest tremble in them. McKay said nothing, intently focused on getting the grounds into the filter. “That bad, huh?”

Rodney slammed the filter basket into the maker. “I don’t--can’t you go away?!” The faint trembles had become tremors, almost full-on shakiness. “I’m not in the mood-”

“When did you last eat?” John let his arms unfold as he stood up, a concerned frown appearing.

“-for your--what?” Rodney listed back as his head snapped up. “I…a while. I had a power bar last…I…” Rodney leaned against the counter, then slowly slid to the floor. “I need-”

John had already pulled a power bar out of Rodney’s emergency stash drawer and was kneeling before the scientist, pressing the thing into McKay’s hand. “Here. Eat.” It took a few minutes, but Rodney finally got the package open and was stuffing his face. Somewhere between the sixth and seventh bites, John heard a muffled “thanks” escape. “Rodney, what happened?” He kept his tone completely serious. He’d never seen Rodney like this, and he was…well, not worried (never worried, he didn’t care about McKay!), but it wasn’t normal.

And John didn’t like disruptions to his world; at least, not disruptions that destroyed the status quo.

Rodney swallowed heavily, hand crushing the wrapper remains. “There…I can’t. It’s highly classified-”

“Who am I going to tell, McKay? I’m dead.”

Rodney stared at him, eventually looking away towards the floor. He was silent, and John abruptly realized he missed the steady beat of a clock. Every clock in Rodney’s house was digital, and it was disconcerting to John not to have a steady ’tic-tic-tic’ during this heavy pause.

“I work…I work on a lot of projects,” Rodney finally answered. “One of them, a reactor, started to go critical. It shouldn’t--if I’d been there, it wouldn’t have--I mean, it might’ve, but I’d have-”

“Rodney,” John kept his voice quiet but firm, a grounding agent.

“We almost lost Colorado. And part of Utah--but who cares about Utah? Most useless state I’ve ever been to. You know there’s more sheep-”

“Than people. I know, McKay. What. Happened?” Rodney wouldn’t have been so shaken up, so vulnerable as he had been last night, unless something big had happened.

Rodney went silent again, but his breathing had changed. Sharp, painful breaths that sounded to be on the verge of tears. “Markham. He and I…” He shook his head, taking a deep breath. “There was a power surge coming, and we got out, but Gaul was still…he went in to drag him out and…”

John had a feeling he knew what was coming. “Did they make it?”

The hand clenched around the power bar wrapper pounded the floor. “He’s an idiot! I told him not to go back, that it was too dangerous!”

“He was doing his job.”

“And what the hell was Brendan doing?! I told everyone to clear out, but he didn’t listen! He never listens! Listened!” Another shuddering breath. “And Markham…he was a pain in my ass, but he made sure I ate, and listened to me rant, and drove me home that one time I was on uppers…”

A friend. And John was willing to bet this Brendan was one on some level, or at least someone Rodney knew well. He reached over to give Rodney’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and his hand passed right through McKay’s body. “They…at least you saved everyone in Colorado.”

“They shouldn’t have died,” Rodney said bitterly. “My scientists aren’t supposed to die. And Markham wasn’t even on duty. He just heard the alarm and came and…and…oh god. Brendan and Markham…” McKay violently shuddered, and he put his head between his knees. “They were burned. I saw…christ, their organs liquefied and they died all because I wasn’t…I couldn’t-”

“Hey, hey. You did everything you could. You can’t blame yourself.”

Rodney’s head snapped up, unshed tears awash in his burning gaze. “It was MY PROJECT that killed them! I figured out the math! I designed the reactor chamber! I was called in to FIX the damned thing! And now two of my friends are DEAD! So excuse me if I’m having a little freak out!”

Right, John reminded himself. Rodney worked for the military, but he wasn’t in the military, he didn’t have the training. Death wasn’t something he was trained to cope with. And while John could try reasoning with the one man John considered thoroughly unreasonable under ideal circumstances, he figured someone corporeal might be more what Rodney needed right now.

Getting up, John squatted so he was still eye-level with Rodney. “Where’s Radek?”

Rodney shook again. “He slept. Over the three days. I didn’t, so he’s…they sent me home and he said he’d call if there was trouble, but I was making mistakes and, and…”

John searched his memory. “What about Carson?”

“Busy. There was radiation poisoning and more burns and-”

“Right, right. Okay.” Rodney went silent again, taking deep breaths between his knees. John stood and made his way back to the living room. He stared at the phone, and contemplated what to do. Radek and Carson, Rodney’s friends, were busy--and he was willing to bet Carter was as well (from what he’d overheard in Rodney’s discussions with Radek, anyways). Rodney needed a friend, but Rodney’s friends weren’t available. Knowing it was a long shot and he’d probably regret this, he picked up the phone and dialed the only number he could think of.

* * *

It took only twenty minutes for the front door to slam open, and John made sure to leave the phone right by McKay so it’d look like he was the one that called. As soon as he heard the footsteps, John retreated from Rodney’s sight, hiding. It wasn’t like he needed to, no one but Rodney could see him. Still, he just felt it’d be better if he was out of the way for this.

“Jesus, McKay.” Lorne squatted. “Doc, you okay?”

“Major,” Rodney’s voice was confused, and he blinked owlishly. “How…why are you…”

“You called me. You didn’t say anything, but I have caller ID.” Lorne put an arm under Rodney’s and the other around his torso. “Come on, Doc. Let’s get you to bed.”

“I can do it.” Rodney tried to shove Lorne away, and nearly cracked his chin on the counter when his legs practically collapsed.

Lorne grimaced. “Why don’t we keep that between us, sir.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Rodney’s gaze roamed around the room, and John made sure to duck out of view as they passed him. “Thanks,” he said, and John knew it wasn’t directed at Lorne.

“You’d do the--well, I owe you. You did save all our asses.”

“Not all of them,” Rodney muttered darkly.

“Markham knew what he was doing, sir.” Rodney didn’t respond, letting Lorne lead him out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. John came out of his hiding place, standing right next to the doorway behind the wall.

“Listen, uh, about what I said…sorry.”

“It was a tense situation, sir. Barking orders was fine-”

“Not yesterday. I mean, um, after I bought…I’m sorry.”

John closed his eyes, somehow knowing the apology was not only very rare, but very real.

“Shep was a good guy,” Lorne finally said.

“Yeah,” Rodney responded. “I’m starting to get that. I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t know him.”

“You would’ve hated him, Doc.” John heard a small smile in Lorne’s voice. “He had this drawl that would drive you nuts.”

“Markham drove me nuts.”

“Yeah.” The smile was gone from the man’s voice. “He did.”

There was a hitched breath. “I wish-”

“We all do, Doc. But take it from a guy who’s seen action: put it out of your mind. Just for a day or two. I’ll call and see when Carson can come over.”

“Don’t--I mean, I want--he’ll be just as tired. Let him rest.”

Lorne let out a sigh. “For an asshole, you’re a good guy, Doc.”

“For a brain-dead grunt, you’d make a half-decent minion.”

John heard Lorne chuckle. “Now I know you’re tired. You got some sedatives or something?”

“I’ll be fine, Major. The coffee I had is barely keeping me awake.”

John left the doorway to return to the garage. At least they weren’t at each other’s throats. Lorne, John reflected, was a good choice. He knew his friend wouldn’t let him down, even if it meant dealing with the most vicious, vile man in the world.

Which wasn’t, John was realizing, Rodney McKay at all. He was arrogant, annoying, rude, and a jerk…but this new side, this tired, caring side…it threw John.

Shutting the garage door, he leaned against it, hands behind his back. Maybe, just maybe, he’d have to rethink exactly how much he really wanted McKay gone. He really wasn’t such a bad guy, not when it came down to it.

Just to be sure, though, he’d sleep off the adrenaline (or whatever ghosts had in place of adrenaline) and see how things looked after a nap.

* * *

When John came out in the evening, he found Lorne asleep on the couch, the sports channel showing some college football game. John couldn’t help but grin, and he vowed to keep his buddy company just as soon as he checked in on McKay. He wanted to see if the prickly asshole had returned or not.

He found Rodney sitting up in bed, writing something on a legal pad. At John’s entrance he looked up. “He still asleep?”

John shut the door quietly. “Yup.”

“He only left two hours before me. You probably woke him.”

“Ah.”

Rodney turned his attention back to the notepad. “Thanks. For calling him. I really needed--not that you aren’t--but--thanks.”

“No problem, McKay.” John put his hands on his hips. “So what’re you-”

“Eulogies. I planned on outliving Gaul, but mocking his incompetence now seems…” Rodney crossed something off, before putting both paper and pen down, shoulders slumping. “I don’t even know what to say about Markham. I didn’t even know his first name.”

John let his arms drop. “I’m sure it’ll come to you. You’re a genius.” Rodney looked back up, eyes narrowing slightly. John shifted his nonexistent weight from one foot to the others, stuffing a hand into his pocket. “So I was thinking…” Rodney sat up, crossing his arms; though it seemed less arrogant then when he usually assumed that position. “Maybe…you aren’t such a bad guy. I mean, your coffee smells great, and the house is pretty big-”

“I’m still calling the medium.” Rodney let out a huff through his nose. “It’s a thank you,” he said to John’s appalled look. “You,” he waved a hand towards the door, “you know, helped. Were nice and…and maybe she can help you leave. Find that place beyond.”

“I don’t really wanna go there.” John made a face. “I’ve seen the beyond. It’s not very--am I supposed to be telling you?”

“Not according to your manual.” Rodney looked down. “I just thought you might like to…find your reward or something. She’s good at that.”

John thought about it for a minute. It would be nice to get his ‘reward’, assuming it was something other than working in the dead secretarial pool. “Alright. Not like I can move on unless I want to.” A guilty look crossed Rodney’s face, and John remembered that Rodney had dealt with ghosts before; possibly with an excommunicator. “I can’t-”

“Not with her, no. She’s made that very clear.”

“Well, then I’m fine with her coming.” John crossed his arms.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” They remained silent a minute, only the faint noise of the TV breaking the quiet. “You know, Lorne isn’t such a bad guy.”

Rodney sighed. “For a geologist,” he said, mouth twisting on the last word. “It’s not even a hard science.”

“Really? I thought rocks were-”

“If you finish that sentence I’m throwing my pen at you.” He waved dismissively. “Go. I can hear the football from here. Leave me to my words and thoughts and ways to make the marines forgive me for making their own cry.”

“Cool.” John opened the door. “And, uh, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you…”

Rodney nodded, picking up his notepad. “I don’t really want to-”

“Yeah, cool. I’ll just…”

“Try not to spook Lorne.”

“Right, right.” John slipped out and shut the door. All in all, not a bad conversation. Heading back downstairs, he took his usual position on the couch and relaxed, ready to tune out the world and tune in to football.

There was a tiny part of his mind, though, that was infinitely curious about who this medium was, and how on some level, he couldn’t wait to meet her.


End file.
